PHILADELPHIA – He is kicking and still alive with a dream no one expected him to be able to dream again. Only days from his 39th birthday, and a decade removed from the day he became a champion for the second time when Scott Norwood missed wide right, Sean Landeta reaches for a final lasting memory.

Landeta tries to boot Keyshawn Johnson and Warren Sapp and the warm weather Bucs out of the Super Bowl Tournament today and you root for him today if you are a Giant fan because he is one of your own. The Eagles are a precocious bunch that wasn’t supposed to be here, and so the City of Brotherly Love is in a frenzy, and it can’t help but make Landeta feel forever young.

“Everyone’s got a bounce in their step,” Landeta said. The wind and the cold and the snow on the Vet sidelines will serve as cruel reminders to the Bucs, who will try again to make a mockery of the fact they cannot win unless it is 40 degrees or higher, but the one player nothing will bother is Landeta. He has seen it all.

“The fans and the people here love this team the way Giant fans love the Giants in New York,” Landeta said.

Maybe the one day Giant fans didn’t love Landeta was the day he whiffed on one fateful punt attempt in the 1985 playoffs against the Bears at blustery, frozen Soldier Field against the Mike Ditka Bears. It was his first year as the heir apparent to Dave Jennings. “Believe it or not, except for the one miss, the game in Chicago might have been the best one I had in the playoffs,” Landeta said.

But he lived to punt another day, and none other than Lawrence Taylor credits Landeta with being the key to the Giants’ 17-0 1986 NFC Championship Game victory over the Redskins at Giants Stadium. Landeta dominated a treacherous wind. “I was fortunate to make perfect contact on several punts,” he said.

He was a Giant until 1993, which means a big piece of his heart is blue. You can hear it in his voice when he talks about the ’86 Super Bowl XXI Giants. “You have to be lucky as a player to be on a team like that at the right time,” Landeta said. “Some guys can play a long time and not be on a great team like that.”

He is back in Pasadena now, against John Elway and the Broncos. “It was a beautiful day out in southern California,” Landeta said. “It was the biggest crowd I ever played in front of. We had so many fans there. We opened it up in the third quarter. Just a nice feeling with five minutes left to know you’re gonna win. It was great.”

Now he fast-forwards four years. He is in Tampa now for Super Bowl XXV against the Bills. “That one was different,” Landeta said. “We really were not expected to win. The Buffalo team we played was like an All-Star team. I can remember Bill [Parcells], early in the week, saying, ‘I hope you guys already know you’re losing 10-0 and it’s only Tuesday,’ trying to say, ‘No one thinks you can win.’ That was one of the best-executed game plans ever. For our opponent to hold the ball for 19 minutes and change and score as many points as we did in 40 minutes . . . to think of all the really great plays everybody made – Everson Walls and Mark Ingram, Perry Williams . . . Hostetler holding onto the ball in the end zone [against Bruce Smith]. Stephen Baker making a big touchdown catch before halftime. So many guys made so many great plays.”

And Parcells? “I’ll always be grateful to have him choose me to be the punter for the Giants,” Landeta said. “He was interesting. Sometimes, you’d have a great game and you kinda think you’d hear a good word from him, and he’d tell you two or three things you didn’t do that well. You’d scratch your head and wonder, ‘What do I have to do to make this guy happy?’ Other times, you didn’t do well, and he’d find something positive about it that would lift you.”

LT? “Great person. Great football player. Great teammate,” Landeta said. Phil Simms? “Just a consummate pro about everything he did. You knew you could count on him.”

Landeta is asked to sum up his Giant years. “Just really very glad to have played nine seasons there at the time I did,” he said.

Now he tries to kick the Eagles toward the Giants. How ironic it would be for Landeta to be kicking against his old team in his old stadium with the Super Bowl at stake. “It would be great to go back up there and play,” Landeta said. “It obviously would be extremely tough. They beat us handily both times. You can’t ignore that.”

You can’t ignore the job Eagles head coach Andy Reid has done. “He’s done a good job letting guys know just to go out and play your game,” Landeta said. ” ‘Don’t try to be something you’re not. Prepare like you do every week.’ “

Landeta was in Green Bay in ’98 when Reid was the quarterbacks coach. “He’s on top of every little thing,” Landeta said. “He’s not afraid for one second to raise his voice during practice or during games if he sees things aren’t right.”

Landeta was asked if Reid is similar at all to Parcells. “He spent all that time under Mike Holmgren and he and Parcells are very much alike, ’cause I played for both of those guys,” Landeta said. “The only thing I can think is a clear difference is Andy doesn’t curse as much as those other two.”

Reid was chastised in Philadelphia when he made Donovan McNabb his first draft choice over Ricky Williams. It was the right move. McNabb is a natural, a leader. “He’s a very impressive guy,” Landeta said. “To do what he’s done at such a young age . . . he plays and carries himself as if he’s a 10-year vet and he’s only six years out of high school. All the guys on the team think the world of him, and I think that’s important. He’s a great teammate. . . . He stays on an even keel, which is real important. If he stays healthy, this team has a chance to be good for a long time.”

If he stays healthy, Landeta has a chance to stay good for a long time, and kick his way toward Canton. “I guess it makes sense to say if you still want to do it and you can get a chance to do it, the latter being more important, it would be great to continue,” Landeta said. “I can say I’d like to punt five more years, but I don’t know if that’s realistic. Every year you play you realize how precious it is to be part of everything that goes along with this.”

Every day like this makes you feel like a Giant . . . if you don’t already.